Deliberation

Deliberative democratic theory is a normative, talk-centric democratic theory where deliberation and deliberative debate and discussion take center stage. For a political discussion to be deliberative, it should meet certain communicative standards. This entry mainly focuses on the communicative aspects that are key in deliberative democracy, and discusses theoretical, empirical and normative aspects related to it. More specifically, this entry first discusses the concept of deliberative communication and how it evolved over time. Connected to this, the entry also discusses the deliberative systems approach as well as the study of deliberation in different political debate settings and contexts, going from more likely places, such as citizen assemblies and parliamentary venues, to less likely places, such as televised debates and social media. The entry ends with some critical reflections and paths for future research.